Show-Day At Battle Abbey, 1876

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

　　

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A garden here—May breath and bloom of spring— The cuckoo yonder from an English elm Crying ‘with my false egg I overwhelm The native nest:’ and fancy hears the ring Of harness, and that deathful arrow sing, And Saxon battleaxe clang on Norman helm. Here rose the dragon-banner of our realm: Here fought, here fell, our Norman-slander’d king. O Garden blossoming out of English blood! O strange hate-healer Time! We stroll and stare Where might made right eight hundred years ago; Might, right? ay good, so all things make for good- But he and he, if soul be soul, are where Each stands full face with all he did below.

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